Artist of the Day, June 21, 2021: François Bard, a French painter (#1315)

 François Bard (1959) studied at the  École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and graduated in 1980. At the time, painting was being rediscovered in France and Europe, with artistic movements such as the French Figuration Libre and the Italian Transavantgarde, and artists such as Georg Baselitz and Jörg Immendorff...

François Bard continued his research as a resident of the Casa Velázquez , Madrid, from 1988 to 1990. Since then, he has pursued an international career with numerous solo and group exhibitions and participated in contemporary art fairs in Paris, London, Bordeaux, New York, Houston, and Miami. He has been represented by the Galerie

The characters painted by François Bard challenge us. Anonymous, female silhouettes, fake cops or real gangsters, we find ourselves facing a scene that has taken place and whose protagonists seem to be waiting for our testimonies. Bard's painting thus takes us to witness. From Gustave Courbet's "Burial at Ornans" to the evanescent canvases of intrigues in the Belgian Congo depicted by Luc Tuymans, it is the entire history of painting that has been able to bear witness to and question ourselves on the scene described.

Faced with the works of Bard, we are called to account. Truncated characters, close-up silhouettes, zooms in and other optical tracking shots are cinematographic processes - this other great medium of popular imagery - reused here by the painter. A silent focus on a strong scene suddenly stopped by our intrusion. In reality, nothing will move. The pieces with convictions like a rebus are presented scattered to our gaze. The wait can be palpable, the viewer should finish the scene. Popular literature too - from detective novels to miscellaneous facts - never ceases to tell us from its margins the going world. Here, a scholarly painting which draws on an imaginary fiction but in part common to it.
He lives and works in Paris and in the South of France

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 François Bard

2011, Fuel

2011, Garde à vue

2011, Le krach

2011, Robe rose

2012, Contre-Nuit

 2012, Speech of Kinshasa

 2012, Trop Tard

2013, Converse

2013, Crowd

2013, Génétique

2013, Transfer

2013,  Zone d'ombre

2014, Chinatown

 2014, Cigare

2014, Crépuscule

2014, La capuche

2014, Stalindgrad

2014, Tenue de soirée

2015, Capuche jaune

2016, L'archange

2016, Le complot

2016, Le grand kilt

 2016, Le grand prédateur

 2016, Les sentiers de la gloire

 2016, Winners

2017, Retiens mon nom

2017, Sauvés

2018, Dame de coeur

2018, Dis a Donald

 2018, L'Homme blanc

2018, La guerre c'est maintenant

 2018, Le chien blanc

2018, Le loup garou

2018, Le voyageur

2018, Recul nécéssaire

 2019, Wanted

 Le collier de perle

Narcissus II (Le Bain II)